If you read enough sci-fi from the late 40’s/early 50’s, you’ll come across references to technologies then in use but which have since vanished. One such technology is the “Wire Recorder,” a way of recording sound magnetically. The basics of the technology are roughly the same as used on tape recorders, but instead of a tape of plastic film covered in iron oxide, the wire recorders used actual stainless steel wire.

The video below describes the technology and history of wire recorders and shows one in operation. The wire recorders actually worked pretty well, but they fell before the might of tape recorders. Why? Two basic reasons. First, magnetic tape recorders were capable of producing far better sound. Second, an hour of wire was nearly a mile and a half of wire. There is a sequence in the video showing the results of something going wrong during rewinding and, man, you do *not* want to have to try to straighten out that mess.

Not only does this Australian robot negate the need for a lot of illegal immigrant laborers, it also supplies a new, cheaper way to build that southern wall Trump is always yapping about:

This robot apparently does in one hour what a standard bricklayer does in about four. Does it cost more than four bricklayers? Well… probably. But it should be possible to run this thing 24 hours a day, seven days a week, regardless of weather conditions (except for severe storms, of course). And the next prototype is supposed to do what two bricklayers can do in a day… in one hour.

Apparently, President Maduro signed a decree allowing the labor ministry to order “all workers from the public and private sector with enough physical capabilities and technical know-how” into the fields for 60 days, with a possible extension of 60 days beyond that.

This sort of thing is pretty much the natural end result of dogged determination among a collectivist government in the face of reality. A pragmatic Venezuelan government would toss Madura out on his ass and change the constitution to make it a treasonous offense for the government to nationalize businesses or try to control prices.

Note: not a whole lot of data available on this one. Search for it online and all the links so far come back to this news.vice.com story. So… who knows, maybe it’s a hoax. But it sure sounds like the sort of genius policy a Socialist would dream up. And Amnesty International seems to think it’s for real, and they don’t seem to be fans of the idea.

An artist used my diagrams of the Northrop Low Altitude Penetrator (a concept that competed against the design that became the B-2) to create a full-color layout. I wish I could work in color half as well…

The artist (Kurt Beswick) bounced an earlier version of the art off me and we discussed it for a bit. It was my opinion that a stealth bomber like this specifically designed to fly at near-treetop level (200 feet) would either be in green camouflage, or F-117 Nighthawk black. What do you think?

The local news ran several videos shot by Utahns of the Chinese upper stage breaking up over Utah last night, and I can confidently state that whatever I saw… it wasn’t that.

The upper stage appears to have been relatively low in the sky; what I saw was directly overhead

The upper stage was a large collection of bits,a stretched-out cloud of junk. What I saw was *one* distinct object that only broke into two or three just before it burned out.

No matter how I work it out, what I saw seems to have been about ten minutes earlier than the upper stage entry.

It seems statistically unlikely that two man-made objects would re-enter that close together in space and time and *not* be related. So… perhaps I saw a payload fairing or an interstage structure? An upper stage includes things like propellant tanks which would react badly to re-entry dynamic pressure and heating, and should break up early resulting in the shower of sparks other people saw, but a tankless structural element might hold together as a single chunk long enough to burn out.

In looking up Martin Mars videos on Youtube for the immediately preceding post, a number of irrelevant videos popped up, presumably dug up via some algorithm that makes sense to somebody. Now, I’m ok with “wrong” videos being pulled up from time to time; sometimes they are interesting. But I’ve noticed lately that I seem to be getting a *lot* of whacko conspiracy vids… and especially disturbing, “flat Earth” vids. It could be some Poe’s Laws thing in effect, with people *pretending* to be flat Earthers… but it’s getting harder and harder to not just automatically assume that anyone who looks like a nut is, in fact, a nut. The video below was something Youtube thought I’d like to see when I pulled up one of the Martin Mars vids. It’s actually a little painful. And since I’m a sharing, kind-hearted guy… I thought y’all would like to experience this particular flavor of idiocy. The guy claims that not only did we not land on the moon, we didn’t put the ISS into orbit. And on top of that, there are no satellites, either.

Another rare piece of early Dyna Soar color art. This one shows the Dyna Soar heading to space atop the centaur upper stage of an Atlas booster. And if you think you are seeing corrugations on the back of the spaceplane, you are correct. At this stage in the design process the Dyna Soar *did* […]

So the media is currently ulcerating over Trump suggesting that he’d like to see NFL owners fire players who decide to disrespect the US flag & anthem before games. Here’s the thing: 1: It’s the players right to disrespect the flag, the anthem, the US. 2: It’s any citizens right to say that he’d like […]

Yes, I’ve posted these before. But I feel it’s important for everyone to maintain a proper level of understanding of the encabulator, the turbo-encabulator and the retro-encabulator. And of course once you have an encabulator, you’ll need to diagnose it from time to time: There have of course been advances in the field […]

Argh. Facebook is not my favorite thing. But, apparently, it’s where all the cool kids hang out, so the Aerospace Projects Review Facebook page that I cobbled together years ago, I’ve started posting things in again. One of the weird things about Facebook is that you (apparently) can’t see a page unless you are signed […]

Oh, boy! Mayhem! A Group Of 62 Catholics Has Accused The Pope Of Spreading Heresy Not being Catholic, I have no dog in this fight. Still, it’s always entertaining when religious leaders tell other religious leaders they’re wrong. Wacky hijinks often ensue.

So, Star Trek Discovery plopped onto the airwaves tonight. My review: It was certainly pretty, but all those visuals were spoiled by a whole lot of “WTF am I looking at?” Especially with the “Klingons” who bore almost no relationship to any prior iteration of the Klingons, in biology, aesthetics or culture. Heck, they even […]

… in a drone: This is pretty much exactly the sort of footage that would have been impossible to get prior to the current generation of drones. So just imagine what people will be able to film once the batteries for drones are actually *good,* with the power and energy density of chemical fuels like […]

OK, let’s say your town is plagued by a transdimensional monster that takes the form of a killer psychotic clown. Who would be the best person to try to destroy this menace? That’s right, the goddamn Batman: And because why not: Bill Nye just walked into our elevator while I was snap chatting.. pic.twitter.com/LwCOITAEft […]

A deli worker was attacked, someone came across the counter and slashed at him with a knife. He fought back with a knife of his own, and the other guy got the worse of it. So, what happened? Did the city of New York throw the deli worker a ticker tape parade? Give him the […]